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Retention

Overview

The way you reward, sustain and promote your workers can impact how productive your organization is, how adaptive to environmental changes, and how long staff stay.

Retaining the right staff for your organization requires:

LISTENING

REWARDING

Using deliberate recognition practices and

Competitive compensation

SUPERVISION that is consistent and clinically focused

TRAINING AND EDUCATION

Providing training at the workplace and/or for supervisors and staff offsite

Providing opportunities for or information about educational advancement

WORK ENVIRONMENT that is supportive and adapts to changing needs

MENTORING that begins on day one

The field is small in many ways, and workers will move to advance their career or meet personal needs. How you relate to and support your workers, even with those who leave, speaks to your values and your ability to serve clients.

Listening

Staff members feel empowered, heard, and appreciated when we ASK them questions…Listen to their answers….
And take action!

These four question have been developed and tested by NIATx, a national resource for quality improvement in addiction services. They can be asked in any setting, and will give you actionable insight into the experiences of your staff:

What do we do well here?

What could we do better?

What do you like about working here?

What would make your work experience better?

You can ask these questions in survey form, but you are likely to get better results and help strengthen relationships through targeted conversations with small groups of staff.

Try using the Nominal Group Technique – where everyone has an equal opportunity to make suggestions and prioritize their ideas.

A Gallup Poll discovered twelve core questions that give an organization the most important information it needs to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees.

They are:

Do I know what is expected of me at work?

Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?

Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

At work, do my opinions seem to count?

Does the mission of my company make me feel like my work is important?

Organizations can take a proactive approach to address supervision, training and education issues:

Program-level training: Train supervisors and those they supervise at the same time to ensure support of new skills being used by the individual and adopted in the organization.

Work-based Learning, where education is brought to the worksite, and workers are given educational credit for some of their work, provides new opportunities for organizations to minimize the time out of work for training/education, and new opportunities for staff.

Work Environment

A positive workplace culture is one of the most-often cited reasons for staying with an agency; a negative workplace culture is one of the most-cited reasons for leaving a position or the field.

“Members of the workforce, no matter how well prepared, competent, and compas­sio­nate, must function within systems of care. A competent individual placed in a toxic envi­ronment cannot function efficiently and effec­tively and is far less likely to be retained. Strengthening the behavioral health work­force requires creating environments that support the health and well-being, not only of persons…with substance use conditions, but of the workforce as well.”
Source - p.58 of the Annapolis Coalition Report

Quality Improvement projects have been found to have a profound effect on staff retention. When the quality of care increases, or paperwork or other administrative processes are streamlined, workers feel better about their jobs, and stay.

Mentoring

Workplace mentoring benefits new staff and the mentors themselves. A new worker feels welcomed to the culture and gets individual guidance in navigating the operational elements of a job. A seasoned worker, acting as a mentor, has opportunities to negotiate paths of advancement.

Some people find long-term career mentors on their own, in or outside the workplace.

Funding

If your organization is located in a federally-recognized shortage area, your staff may be eligible for tuition loan repayment in exchange for a specific length of employment there.

Success Stories

See the Success Stories at the bottom of the page to learn about techniques and resources you can use to make your organization stronger.

Share your story of making changes to improve recruitment and retention of your organization's workforce! Contact us with a brief description.

Organizational Development Success Stories

Learn practical details about how these techniques have been implemented. Share your story of making changes to improve recruitment and retention of your organization's workforce! Contact us with a brief description.

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